1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present application relates to the thermal conversion of organic material, for example organic based waste, biomass, etc. to syngas. In particular it relates to the condition of syngas to alter the H2 and CO content thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Syngas composition is mainly affected by: feedstock characteristics (elemental composition, caloric values, moisture content, physical properties) of the material being thermally converted, gasification conditions (oxidants, temperature, pressure, residence time), and the type of gasifiers used (fixed bed, fluidized bed, entrained flow, batch reactor). However, once the factors mentioned above are determined, the syngas composition, especially H2, CO, CO2, and H2/CO ratio will be dictated by thermodynamic equilibrium within a certain range.
The syngas composition will often not match specific gas requirements for industrial applications, for example a syngas engine effective for the conversion of syngas to electrical energy will require a specific syngas composition in order to be effective and to run efficiently. The exact requirement will be dependent upon the industrial process but will often not be the same as the natural composition of the gas produced.
Accordingly there is a need to further control or alter the syngas composition to meet specific requirements (H2 concentration, H2/CO ratio) for industrial applications. This can be achieved by altering the process parameters of the syngas production but such a solution requires that the production of syngas be controlled on the gas composition rather than on system efficiency and to do so will inherently introduce inefficiencies into the processing of the organic material, which is not desirable.
The present invention mitigates, at least in part, the above mentioned problems with prior systems.